The invention relates to a multiple-addition valve for automatic metering of liquid or paste-like auxiliary washing agents held in reservoirs into automatically-controlled washing machines with a central fluid line disposed in a housing bottom and a number of nozzles arranged on a circular line arranged in the housing bottom concentrically to the axis of a rotor, which are able to be connected to the outlet by a connecting line inside the motor-drivable rotor and which have a seal for the connection with the connecting line.
A multiple-addition valve is known from DE 197 36 982 A1 for adding ready-to-use dilutions which have been produced from liquid or paste-like concentrated auxiliary washing agents held in reservoirs and a thinning liquid, preferably water. This multiple-addition valve is suitable for use in commercial washing machines in order to supply a number of machines with already premixed doses of ready-to-use dilutions from a central dispensing device for auxiliary washing agents via the fluid line. For this purpose the individual metered doses of stored auxiliary washing agents are thinned with water and then given to a multiple-addition valve called a “multiple-opening valve”. From there they are distributed via the nozzles as a ready-to-use dilution to a plurality of washing machines.
As well having a variety of areas of application, the known multiple-addition valve is also a complex and expensive design. In particular an expensive mechanism is present through which the nozzles arranged in the housing bottom are always hydraulically separated from the connecting line arranged in the rotor before the rotor is to be rotated to the new position. For this purpose a spherical part of the connecting line is raised from a funnel of the nozzle and simultaneously relieves the strain on the surrounding annular seal. After moving into the new position the rotor must be lowered again so that the spherical part lowers into the funnel of the other nozzle and makes this seal. For raising and lowering the rotor a compressed-air cylinder is used which engages on the drive shaft of the rotor.